All Rise...

Editor's Note

The Charge

The most acclaimed motion picture of our time!

Opening Statement

"When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way! From your first cigarette
to your last dyin' days!"

Facts of the Case

For years, the Jets have been the top street gang on Manhattan's West Side.
However, their authority has recently been challenged by the Puerto Rican
Sharks, and that means war is a-brewing. As respective gang leaders Riff (Russ
Tamblyn, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and Bernardo (George Chakiris,
The Young Girls of Rochefort)
prepare for their big "rumble," former Jet Tony (Richard Beymer, Twin Peaks) begins a secretive romantic
relationship with Bernado's sister Maria (Natalie Wood, Miracle on 34th Street). Is there any
chance that the Jets and Sharks might be able to come to some sort of peaceful
understanding? If not, is there any hope that a forbidden romance involving two
people on opposite sides of the gang war can survive?

The Evidence

I was really hoping that re-watching West Side Story on Blu-ray would
finally persuade me of the film's greatness. To be sure, there are undeniably
numerous great elements in the film, but the picture as a whole has never really
worked too well for me. There's something irritatingly sanitized and naive about
the whole thing, and I'm not talking about the fact that a bunch of gang members
are singing and dancing. I have no problem accepting the fact that this modern
updating of Romeo and Juliet is
being presented as a musical (brought to the stage in 1957 and then whisked to
the big screen in 1961), but rather with the fact that it glosses over pretty
much every aspect of gang life.

Honestly, one can find a way to rationalize and forgive most of the
individual instances of this: the characters using euphamisms like
"bugging" instead of actual swear words, the gang members all look
clean-cut enough to take home to your mother, the violence is completely
bloodless, much of the "street slang" used in the dialogue feels like
a middle-aged white man's approximation of how kids talk, the gang members
sometimes seem less driven by legitimate desire to do something than by a need
to follow the established Shakespearean plot, the film's themes are frequently
delivered in a silly, heavy-handed fashion, and the film's conclusion manages to
both shy away from its bolder source material in timid fashion and deliver a
series of events that would undoubtedly leave real-life gang members laughing
hysterically. I can find a way to accept these elements individually, but that
doesn't change the fact that the final result is a film that frequently feels
like a silly, painfully dated tragedy. The finale's emotional weight is the sort
that is likely to leave appropriately touched viewers nodding their heads and
saying, "Such a shame, all this gang violence," when it should be
rendering them speechless.

Still, there's a reason the film remains so highly-regarded some 50 years
after its release: West Side Story contains some of the finest dance
sequences ever committed to film. Jerome Robbins' vibrantly athletic
choreography joins forces with Leonard Bernstein's snaky, searing, punchy music
to create something that stomps all over the more conventional, old-fashioned
sort of movie musical dance sequence. The film's balletic opening sequence is
arguably the strongest stuff it has to offer, as the Jets and Sharks storm
through the streets looking to raise a ruckus. Bernstein's music and Robbins'
jerky choreography have a certain violent undercurrent; there are quite a few
moves that veer much closer to street fighting than Swan Lake. The lyrics
of Steven Sondheim also add a good deal to many of these sequences, as there's a
clever elegance in many of his songs that is severely lacking in the actual
dialogue. Sondheim is actually considering what his characters are saying;
Ernest Lehman's screenplay mostly seems interested in getting everyone from
point A to point B.

The dancing is uniformly excellent, but the actual performances are all over
the map. Rita Moreno is unquestionably the highlight as Maria's close friend
Anita, as she brings a vibrant energy and persuasive dramatic punch to her
scenes which is never less than believable. She won an Oscar for her
performance, as did Chakiris for his charismatic work as Bernardo. However, the
leads struggle to keep our interest. Natalie Wood seems poorly cast as Maria,
having trouble maintaining her hokey Puerto Rican accent and distracting when
lip-syncing her numbers (actually performed by old pro Marni Nixon). Even so,
she's better than Richard Beymer, whose lovestruck Tony has slightly less charm
than a chunk of granite. Tony and Maria's romance should the electrifying
emotional fuel which sustains the story; instead it simply lays there in the
foreground as filler between musical numbers.

West Side Story (Blu-ray) is one of 2011's more controversial hi-def
releases, as it contains a very prominent mistake during the opening credits:
Saul Bass' distinctive skyline pattern should dissolve into the main title, but
instead the skyline fades to black and the main title fades in. Fox is not
recalling the discs that have been released, but simply offering a "running
fix," meaning that you'll eventually be able to return your copy of West
Side Story (Blu-ray) for a corrected replacement. As such, proceed at your
own risk when purchasing this release. Otherwise, the 1080p/2.20:1 transfer is
solid, if not exactly the resplendent home video experience it ought to be.
There are some shimmer issues early in the film, along with a few sequences
which look disappointingly soft. However, colors are bright and have a lot of
pop, detail is excellent the majority of the time and blacks are impressively
deep. It's much better-looking than ever before. The DTS HD 7.1 Master Audio
track is pretty solid, though it's taken from the older four track mag masters
rather than from the recently discovered and restored six track mag masters
(finances were cited as the reason for this). So, it's not as good as it could
have been given that a superior track exists, but it's okay on its own terms.
Why only okay? For some reason, those memorable whistles which open the film
(and are supposed to bounce left and right) have not been mixed correctly: the
whistles don't bounce anywhere, they just sit right in the middle. Otherwise,
the songs have an impressive amount of punch (even if they sound just a tiny bit
pinched on occasion), the dialogue is clean and the sound design is
well-captured. Basically, we're dealing with a mostly-good release marred by
some unforgivable errors.

Supplements are a blend of old and new material, though the new stuff is a
little underwhelming: a scene-specific audio commentary with Sondheim (in which
he continues to shake his head in dismay at his own lyrics), a sporadic
picture-in-picture "Pow! The Dances of West Side Story" track,
a jukebox featuring all the musical numbers and a so-so featurette called
"A Place for Us: West Side Story's Legacy" (30 minutes). The
best supplement is the older documentary "West Side Memories" (56
minutes), which offers a fairly comprehensive look at the making of the film.
You also get some storyboard-to-film comparisons, a trailer and a DVD Copy. It
should be noted that most of the supplements are included on a second Blu-ray
disc, which is impressively generous of Fox.

Closing Statement

West Side Story is a frustratingly clunky update of Romeo and
Juliet enlivened by some of the best song-and-dance sequences the genre has
to offer. Those who enjoy the film even more than I do will undoubtedly be
tickled to own the film in hi-def, but the significant audio and video errors
this Blu-ray offers should be carefully considered before a purchase is
made.

The Verdict

Both the film and the Blu-ray commit some serious crimes, but both offer just
enough merit to earn a verdict of not guilty.

Give us your feedback!

Did we give West Side Story (Blu-ray) 50th Anniversary a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.